Economic Crisis: Credit Cards? Or Race Cards?
The story of Economic Inequality
Hung Nguyen
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Econ 104: Introduction to Macroeconomics
Professor Robert Pollin: TA Carlos Marenta

Since before the founding of our country, the American way of life has, and continues to be, hypocritical to the first lines of the Declaration of Independence. “That all men are created equal.” The lines that every American should hold dear to the heart, and many even lose their lives to uphold. America has seen many times of economic downturn, and economic prosperity. Though for African Americans; economics has been consistently been a downturn. The opportunity to play a role in, and to enjoy economic prosperity has always been an uphill battle for these groups. Racial inequality in America has always been inconsistent with equal opportunity in the job market. Which ultimately means that groups such as African Americans have always been deprived of their equal rights to fairly compete for jobs. Because the level of playing field is heavily shifted against minority groups and woman, there will always be high unemployment for these groups. What people tend to forget to realize is that this disparity in equal opportunity hurts the overall economy. When the nations employers deprive particular groups of economic opportunity, unemployment rises, and when unemployment rises, the poverty level will also rise. This is especially true for the case of African American. As we will see, African Americans fall below Caucasians in median income, and above Caucasians in poverty. We will also see a long history of inequalities towards African Americans in the Housing market.
Comparative Median Income When the U.S. census bureau sent out the statistics for the median income for the overall population. A significant disparity is seen between the African